


Under The Surface

by lelepandewritium



Category: One Piece
Genre: Bonus Day, M/M, Scars, ZoLu Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 11:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4563489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lelepandewritium/pseuds/lelepandewritium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This work was for Zolu week, I just completely forgot to post it on here and just left it on my tumblr. Woops. </p><p>From the day that Zoro and Luffy began to travel together, they had begun to grow closer. They share stories of their pasts, starting innocent and amused at first, before delving deeper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under The Surface

A single glance will not reveal all there is to know of a person.

What you see is all but the surface.

The surface is a single page in a book, a single sentence, a single word.

It’s but the start of a series of adventures.

It’s the cover of a tale that has yet to be completed.

The surface gives you but an idea of what is contained within.

And often enough, a person will misjudge what they see.

They will see a torn cover, one with tape and glue holding it together, and believe it wasn’t very good to begin with.

They will see one in seemingly perfect condition, but upon opening it, will find that pages had been torn out.

They will see one that is vibrant and beautiful, seemingly full of fun and adventure, and while they will enjoy it, they will know that all it contains is lies.

They will see one that is old, that was obviously loved and cared for, and they will hold it gently in their hands, never opening it for fear of tearing it.

They will judge the surface, for that is all they know how to do.

Few however, few will look past the surface, past the scars, past the cold, haunted eyes, and dig down deeper.

\---------------------------------------------------

The ocean was calm, gentle, smooth.

There were no screaming seagulls flying in the air.

There were no sea monsters trying to eat them.

It was a good day.

So why, you ask, couldn’t Zoro get any sleep?

Because of one young, loud, chatter box of a captain.

That’s why.

A weary sigh filled Zoro’s lungs, escaping in one big puff of air.

He was resigned to his fate.

He wouldn’t be getting his usual naps in like he normally could.

He was just going to have to deal with it.

Begrudgingly.

“-and so I caught this huuUUUUUGE fish and it was green–kinda like your hair Zoro–and I took it back to town and Makino cooked it for me and I got to eat the whole thing! It was really good and I tried looking for another one but I couldn’t find one like it again and I searched for an entire DAY and it was hard I almost drowned around 7 times and-”

“LUFFY!”

Luffy paused in his tale, blinking down at Zoro and taking in the tired, disgruntled look in the man’s eyes.

“Yeah?”

Sitting up, Zoro crossed his legs, resting an elbow on one of his knees and laying his chin in the palm of his hand.

Zoro looked at Luffy, his annoyance slowly fading away as he saw the obvious excitement the boy was exuding with his tale.

Well, he supposed that listening to Luffy talk wasn’t the worst thing he could be doing right now.

Of course, he could have been sleeping. But that wasn’t going to happen.

“…Nevermind. Continue.”

Zoro leaned back against the ship, sighing and getting comfortable as Luffy began to speak again.

 

\---------------------------------------------------

He’s not sure…when it happened, but somehow, within a week of traveling with Luffy, Zoro found himself telling his own stories and actually listening to Luffy’s with rapt attention. He himself wasn’t a great storyteller, but Luffy seemed to enjoy whatever tale he dished out.

Every minute, of every hour, of every day, they learned something new about each other.

For instance, Zoro learned about how Luffy got his treasured straw hat. He learned about the man named Shanks and how he saved Luffy when he was about to be eaten by a Sea King, losing his left arm in the process.

He learned about how Luffy was often thrown into the jungle to fend for himself by his grandfather.

He learned about how Luffy trained with two other boys, ones he called brothers.

In return, Zoro told stories about his own past. He told Luffy about how he traveled from town to town, fighting against dojos and beating them with basically no skill and only brute force.

He spoke of how he used to hold dozens of wooden swords in his arms and however many he could cram into his mouth and blindly swing away with them.

He spoke of the dojo he had finally lost in, and how he had lost against a skilled swordswoman.

Their talks and stories slowly edged into more personal territories, trust quickly building between the two until they were left at their most vulnerable.

The stories of childhood adventure and training edged off into old pains that helped bring them to where they are today.

One day, almost three weeks into their travels, Zoro was staring off into the vast expanse of the ocean.

Luffy was taking a nap, and normally, Zoro would be napping as well, considering that tended to be the only time he could nap, but today he couldn’t.

He found himself looking back into his past, a story, one that held importance, on the tip of his tongue.

He wondered whether or not he should tell this story, the one that he kept close to his heart at all times and the reason he had Wado with him in the first place.

The two of them had already built a trust, one that Zoro had never really experienced before, and that was reason enough to tell his tale, wasn’t it?

The fact that Zoro was even thinking about speaking of it spoke volumes already.

It wasn’t long before he was shaking Luffy awake, his expression pinched and frame tense with what he wanted, needed, to say.

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Luffy sat up and blinked at Zoro, a question clear in his eyes and an encouragement that didn’t require words for Zoro to feel and take strength from.

Zoro shifted, taking in a deep breath and getting comfortable before he started.

“You already know how reckless I was as a kid, you know how I traveled and got defeated by a swordswoman. And, well, this story is mainly about her but it’s also why…I’m here.”

Zoro shrugged, leaning back against the wood of the dingy and letting the gentle swaying of it calm him down.

“Her name was Kuina. She was young, just a few years older than me. And well, no matter how hard I trained, I could never catch up to her. But still, I was an idiot and challenged her to a fight with real swords. I lost of course.”

Zoro paused, listening to Luffy laugh and feeling his own lips twitch up into a smile.

“But…on that same day, I made a promise with her. We both promised that one day, one of us would become the greatest swordsman in the world.”

“We worked hard, every day, so that we could reach that title some day.”

Zoro stopped, his hand unconsciously moving to grip onto Wado as he thought over the words he should say next.

“One day, when I was out training, three other students came up to me. They were quiet, sullen. I didn’t think anything of it, but what they said turned my world upside down.”

“Kuina had died, while I was off training. It was an accident, a bad one. She had been walking up stairs, just so she could get a sharpening tool for her sword, when she fell. It was…bad. She was dead before anyone could really do anything.”

Zoro looked down at Wado, lifting the sword up and setting it gently onto his lap.

“This was hers. Same sword she beat me with that day I challenged her. I was…angry, that she had died. At the time it had felt like she had been running away from our promise.”

“But, I asked for this sword anyways. Her father, the master from the Dojo, gave it to me. I promised I would become the world’s greatest swordsman then too. For her and for me. If I could do it, then that means she would have had a chance to reach it as well. I carry this sword along and remember that promise everyday.”

Silence surrounded the two. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it’s just that Zoro wasn’t expecting it. He’d been expecting Luffy to say something when he was done. To do something. But he just…sat there, understanding in his eyes that Zoro was startled to see. He never actually wondered if Luffy had also experienced loss early on in his life. He seemed too happy, too outgoing, for the thought to ever cross his mind.

He didn’t have to wonder for very long.

“When I was little, I lost one of my older brothers.”

Zoro felt his breath catch in his throat, the urge to reach out and bring Luffy closer building up inside him. He squashed the feeling down before he could act on it however. He needed to let Luffy talk first, if that’s what he wanted.

“I…there was this place, called the Gray Terminal. Sabo used to live there before he came to live with me and Ace with Dadan and then in the tree house we built. It was this big junkyard, but there were people that lived there. Basically anyone that was really poor and couldn’t live in the Goa city. There were these big gates that kept anyone from going in y’know.”

“And, well, one day there was this big thing going on, and the people from the city wanted to impress this one guy. And the junkyard was just…really ugly to them. So they decided to burn it down. EVen though there were people there. Ace and I were there too, at the time.”

Luffy stopped, fidgeting with his hands before just plopping them on to his lap, huffing.

“Sabo was back in the city. He was part of a noble family, but he hated them. They were mean and believed they were just…better than everyone else. He had ran away from them, but he was forced back.”

“I’m not sure what he’d been doing at the time, but Ace and I got to safety and, well…we heard later in the day that he’d…died. He ran away again and decided to go sail off and become a pirate before us. But…but he sailed when whoever was arriving was close to docking, and, well…he shot down Sabo’s boat.”

Silence engulfed the two once more, but before it could really set in, Zoro moved and got closer to Luffy,sitting close enough for their shoulders to touch.

“…We both have scars, bad ones. They might never heal but…that’s better, isn’t it? It reminds us of why we’re here, why we keep going. For who we keep going.”

He paused and looked over at Luffy, catching his captain’s eyes and finding it difficult to look away.

“The scars on our surface tell a story.”

Zoro raised a hand up, cupping Luffy’s cheek and running his thumb lightly against the scar under his eye, the one he created himself to prove that he was “worthy” as he called it to join Shanks and his crew on their adventures.

“But…the scars we have inside make us who we are. They’re what push us forward. They make us stronger. They don’t have to heal completely if we just accept them. It makes it all the easier when you have someone with you who will stitch the wound closed if it ever tears open again.”

Zoro smiled, pulling his hand away from Luffy’s cheek, instead wrapping an arm around Luffy when he leaned into his side.

A smile spread across Luffy’s face, his arms coiling around Zoro’s stomach and waist.

“Yeah, you’re right. And if the stitching is a little messy at first, well, that’s okay too. We’ll get better at it.”


End file.
